Oct. 14 (UPI) — Cody Balmer, the man who confessed to breaking into the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion in Harrisburg and throwing a Molotov cocktail into the home where Gov. Josh Shapiro and his family and friends slept, pleaded guilty Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The plea deal<\/a> Balmer, 38, took would sentence him to 25 to 50 years<\/a> in prison. He pleaded guilty to charges of attempted murder, terrorism and aggravated arson. He will also pay $100,000 in restitution.\n<\/p>\n The attack happened on the first night of Passover on April 13, after Shapiro had celebrated the holiday with friends and relatives just a few hours earlier. No one was injured in the attack, but two rooms in the mansion were severely damaged. Shapiro and his family had to evacuate the building. The governor, his wife and three of their children were home. There were also 15 other guests and two state troopers there.<\/p>\n Balmer was a mechanic with a long history of mental illness, The New York Times reported. His parents provided a statement to the court apologizing for his actions and saying that he had stopped his medication for schizophrenia. He called a 911 operator after the attack and said he was angry about Shapiro’s stance on the war in Gaza<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n Balmer broke a window at the home. Prosecutors said that video showed Balmer walking through the house, hitting doors, “including a door leading to where the Governor’s family and guests slept, but could not break through,” ABC News reported. He then lit a Molotov cocktail and fled.<\/p>\n Balmer allegedly told police he would have attacked Shapiro with a hammer if he had seen the governor, according to court documents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oct. 14 (UPI) — Cody Balmer, the man who confessed to breaking into the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[456,1563,28,30,29,50,295,1562],"class_list":{"0":"post-1585","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-gaza","9":"tag-law-and-crime","10":"tag-pennsylvania","11":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","12":"tag-pennsylvania-news","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-top-stories","15":"tag-u-s"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}